Phi 4 vs Nova Micro 1.0 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Can the open-source model replace the paid one? Full 2026 breakdown.
Nova Micro 1.0 — full profile ›
Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai
Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.
| Spec | Phi 4 | Nova Micro 1.0 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker | Microsoft | Amazon | – |
| Type | Open-weight | Proprietary | |
| Context window | 16K tokens | 128K tokens | AMNova Micro 1.0 |
| Input price | $0.07/M · free self-host | $0.04/M | AMNova Micro 1.0 |
| Output price | $0.14/M · free self-host | $0.14/M | = Tie |
| Vision / multimodal | No | No | – |
| Tool / function calling | No | Yes | AMNova Micro 1.0 |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No (API only) | |
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Capability | Phi 4 | Nova Micro 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Open weights (downloadable) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | ✗ |
| Runs fully offline | ✓ | ✗ |
| Vision / multimodal | ✗ | ✗ |
| Tool / function calling | ✗ | ✓ |
| 1M+ context window | ✗ | ✗ |
Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).
Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.
| Criterion | Phi 4 | Nova Micro 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-efficiency | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Context window | 2.0 | 3.5 |
| Openness | 5.0 | 1.5 |
| Self-hosting | 5.0 | 1.0 |
| Multimodality | 2.0 | 3.5 |
Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.
[Microsoft Research](/microsoft) Phi-4 is designed to perform well in complex reasoning tasks and can operate efficiently in situations with limited memory or where quick responses are needed. At 14 billion...
Amazon Nova Micro 1.0 is a text-only model that delivers the lowest latency responses in the Amazon Nova family of models at a very low cost. With a context length...
Phi 4 is open-weight and competitive on many tasks, but Nova Micro 1.0 may still lead on the hardest reasoning and agentic work. The gap keeps narrowing — benchmark both on your actual use case before deciding.
Yes. Phi 4 has open weights, so you can self-host it on your own GPUs or run it via a low-cost API. Nova Micro 1.0 is API-only and cannot be self-hosted.
Choose Phi 4 if you want to self-host, keep your data private and skip per-token fees — it's open-weight and runs on your own hardware. Choose Nova Micro 1.0 if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.
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